Call for Papers:

[Claire Bowern]

Hi all,
Apologies for cross-postings.
Patrick McConvell and I are organising a panel session at the
IUAES/AAS/ASAANZ (anthropology) meeting in Perth next July 5-8.
Conference details are available from
http://www.anthropologywa.org/iuaes_aas_asaanz_conference2011/index.html.
The call for papers will close on Monday, January 24th. The panel will
look at mapping and database systems, with a focus on indigenous
languages.
Claire


COMPARISON AND MAPPING OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS

Co-convenor: Patrick McConvell, Linguistics, Australian National University

Email: Patrick.McConvell at anu.edu.au

Co-convenor: Claire Bowern, Linguistics, Yale University

Email: Claire.bowern at yale.edu



Databases (often on-line) that compile indigenous cultural and
environmental knowledge systems in systematic ways are becoming
increasingly common; such resources also allow for systematic
comparison and include analytical tools in their queries. Among the
interfaces which such databases often have are geo-spatial mapping
components enabling visualization of distribution and spread of traits
controlled by the user. Such databases may include multilingual
vocabularies which show the distribution of words and semantic
structures/systems in such fields as kinship (eg AustKin) and
flora/fauna (eg the Hunter-Gatherer Language Dynamics project). Such
linguistic tables can be linked to various other resources, such as
scientific terminologies on plants and animals; ethnographic and
archaeological data on environmental resources usage; and other
cultural and demographic data on the groups. All this work also feeds
back into geographic and other spatial analyses. This panel invites
contributions on comparative database and mapping projects, and plans
discussion of where further cooperation can make these initiatives
more valuable for academic study and indigenous community use.

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Claire Bowern
Associate Professor
Department of Linguistics
Yale University
370 Temple St
New Haven, CT 06511
North American Dialects survey:
http://pantheon.yale.edu/~clb3/NorthAmericanDialects/